IMAGINE what would go through your mind if the boss walked in one day and asked you to take a 20 per cent wage cut.

Even the wealthy among us (which doesn't include any employees of this newspaper, I might add) have made commitments based on a reasonable expectation of our future income.

First division footballers on Premiership wages are no exception, but, with the game in meltdown, taking a pay-cut may prove to be the lesser of two evils for them.

The difficulty is that the wage cut trend is now cutting through the divisions to draw in players for whom 20 per cent of their salary is actually, rather a lot of money - Wycombe Wanderers, Oldham Athletic and (if the rumour mill is to be believed) Barnsley, all of the second division.

Now then, I'm only speculating here, but my guess is that Wycombe's wage bill won't be anywhere near £2 million - I'd hazard a guess at £1.5million.

That would leave the club saving approximately £150,000 a year.

But for the player who is earning, say £50,000 a year (a fair whack for a young man, but not enough to live like a king in an expensive area on the edge of London), it means a £5,000 chunk of his annual income.

He might still be able to get by, but something would have to go.

The money he is putting away for retirement? The cash he shells out for his children's education?

But look at it another way.

The player is getting towards the end of his career, has a niggling injury that keeps playing up and would not, by any stretch of the imagination, be guaranteed a chance at another club should his present employer fold.

The potential to coerce an average second division player into taking a pay-cut he can ill afford is significant, and the journeyman footballer should at least be able to trust his club to treat him properly.

Let's not forget that, in football, contracts run both ways.

For years clubs have been sulking as players who are under contract decide the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

But they have been able to hang on and hold the player to his contract, or receive a healthy fee on his departure.

Perhaps what clubs need to do is take another look at their bonus system.

Eventually, football's future lies with a system whereby footballers can't cling on to lucrative guaranteed pay cheques at the end of the month and have, instead, to perform and win matches in order to boost their income.

My sympathy does not, however, extend to Dennis Wise.

No employer need tolerate one of its employees hitting another of its employers.

Leicester's decision to get shut of him is one of relatively few things they have managed to get right lately.